I agree. As someone who is from an ethnic minority and lived amongst the community, I certainly agree that ra.cism is a lot more endemic. I heard a lot of white people are lazy, promiscuous generalisation amongst the community and a lot of ethnic pride as well as parents forbid their children to marry other people form different race (marry your own kind).

Often the outrage people suffer from so called r*cism (to avoid being put in moderation) often is due to their own pride of their own race as well as social conservatism where they find their own customs and culture to be sacred and something unable to be challenge, In a way it is understandable as we come from more oppressive society where it is unchallengeable. IN any case because they put so much pride to their own skin colour and so much pride to their own cultural values they get more offended when values in their own society is mocked. Lot of the outrage is due to their own bigotry themselves.

Whilst people in more liberal society have no problem with their culture being mock.

I certainly hate if liberal countries like Australia becomes preoccupied in avoiding “offending” other culture who have too much pride to their own customs. I reject social conservatism no matter culture they come from

Yep Nordster I’m becoming more and more sympathetic to libertarian values even if it’s right now socially. Hate speech and anti-blasphemy laws are absolute threats to democracy in western country.

It’s a good thing the current government are trying to remove section 18C from the racial discrimination act. making it illegal to offend people on racial grounds.

Having immigration policy that excludes people based on race is wrong and unethical because it is wrong to exclude people based on arbitrary physical characteristic a person may have that is unrelated ot productivity as citizens in a country.

It’s also wrong to exclude indigenous Australian from national census and classify them as fauna and flora. That’s because it’s wrong to exclude people human beings from the natural census based on arbitrary physical characteristic a person may have.

It’s wrong for people to take “half-caste” children away from family as it is wrong to take away children from family when they are fit parents especially based on arbitrary physical characteristic a person may have.

However there’s a big connection that because that is wrong, somehow making jokes about race is wrong as well especially when people joke about every other aspect of people physical characteristic and then to arbitrarily elevate race as something “special” crime above any other physical characteristic.

Yep

Culture isn’t sacred and I despise conservative values that make culture as something sacred and it’s great that Australia rejects that.

Race is like any other physical characteristic. Colour of hair, colour of eyes, height, body shape etc
Race should not be off limits to humour and jokes

I once wrote an article complaining about racism (mostly criticising Ljubo). Nowadays I kind of regret that article as I think racism has become so politicised beyond it’s original intention of non-discrimination based on race and I made a small contribution towards that.

What is the ideal way people should treat race?

I would argue that race should be treated the same way as any physical characteristic. People should treat race the same way people treat someone colour of the hair coulour, eye colour, height, physical size, gender etc.

However if we treat race like that, than we have to do a rethink how we see race.

You see people joke about blondes and brunettes. People joke about people who are born short sighted. People joke about tall and short people (you know small man syndrome). Sometimes people joke about difference in gender

How do we deal with issues like that. In terms of context, sometimes we treat it as a jocular joke and sometimes we treat it as a malicious attack dependent on the contextual situation.

However the idea that race is singled out of all physical characteristic and becomes off limits becomes hypocritical. You see most people say race isn’t important and we shouldn’t treat people differently purely because of race. However we are elevating the importance of race whenever we treat race as a special characteristic and we make jokes about race off limits.

If people do insult people due to race in a malicious way. How should be we treat it? Well as harrassment, as much as we should treat people harrassing people about any other physical characteric. Making racism as a special type of harrassment as something much worst than other insult (worst of all I have heard people argue that racist insults is worst than physical violence I mean FFS haven’t people heard of sticks and stones) is counterproductive and actually artificially elevates race to a higher level of importance

I also add that equating race with culture is one of the most anti-liberal and anti-democratic values in society and conversely is extremely racist. Liberal democracy equals everything is not sacred and everything is up for debate and discussion including culturally entrenched attitude. Culture is fluidic as cultures are willing to criticised itself including satire and mockery. Often the division of liberalism and conservatives is how people view culture, liberals often view culture as flluidic whilst conservatives view it static. WHat people don’t get is that there are liberals and conservatives in every culture out there who are challenging cultural values.

When people equate culture with race and criticising culture as criticising race and make criticism of culture off limit, You are betraying liberal values. what I find ironic is that essentially right wing conservatives of minority groups have manage to manipulate left wing progressives to enforce cultural values on their own community by turning criticism of culture to criticism of race. Whenever you hear minority groups “leaders” going on the importance for people to follow their culture and bemoaning people forgetting their traditional cultural values, people don’t understand this is equivalence of let say family first telling Australia that people should follow christian values and is bad that people abandon christian culture. However the left will eat the former and help enforce that whilst criticising the latter.

For people who say the 6-0 loss is a reflection of where Australian football is at.

That’s absolutely garbage

It’s not even reflection of the potential of Australian football under Holger Osieck where Australia defeated Germany 2-1 in their own backyard.

So the potential is there to be able to fight and scrap a credible result against quality opposition it’s just that the two 6-0 defeat is a reflection of the team going in free fall

I’ll end with the discussion that Holger may have loss the dressing room

Well I mention back when he was appointed http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/08/27/a-look-behind-holger-osieck-cv/
That although I was cautiously optimistic about his appointment he has a history of player revolts that is a concern
He lost the dressing room in Canada when there was a player revolt and he loss the dressing room in Urawa Reds where there was another players revolt. So this was another example under his career of him losing the dressing room (although I guess no signs of “revolt” yet but considering Culina comment about his inside source in the national camp I’m predicting that was around the corner)

PErsonally I think some scrutiny has to go to Mr. Han Berger

As much as we blame Verbeek or Holger or Versleijen, Vidmar for their poor performance as manager of socceroos or the youth team

who is the common factor who gave the key recommendation to FFA to appointed them as managers?

Han Berger

Also the results at youth levels is very suspect after that 5-1 loss to Vietnam and our subpar performance in youth world cup

It’s all very well to say that youth development is a long term project that takes 20 years to see the result but there needs to be evidence of interim progress and there hasn’t been any

There is a saying in politics, you set long term goals because you’ll won’t be around to be accountable for it Han Berger has the luxury to do anything he wants as “it’s a long term goal that takes 20 years to see it bear fruit”

As much as we like the idea that it’more important to play style of football, the whole performance over result seem to be away to avoid accountability to be able to get the team to play possession football and do it well. Any failure is due to “performance” over “result and we never ask out self whether the team is playing to its potential.

My attempt of calculation
This is the assumption that Asian teams are put in the same pot as south america. It’s quite possible we will could be place in Pot 4 and swapped with the african/concacaf/ofc nations as well. If we are in pot 4 it would simply be 1/8 to be in the Brazil group and 1/24 to be playing the opening game
Pot 1: Seeds
Pot 2: Non-seeded European Team
Pot 3: Asia/South America
Pot 4: Africa/CONCACAF/OFC

So Brazil and Argentina will be the two seeded non South American teams. Therefore the South american sides must all be placed with the European seeded teams. So the four south american sides will be put wiht european sides and two asians team will be put with european sides and two will be placed with south american teams.
So there is a 50% chance of been place with Brazil or Argentina
25% chance of being place with Brazil
1/12 chance (1/4 x 1/3 as we have a chance of playing brazil first, second or third) of playing the opening game of the tournament. So that is about 8.3% from my calculation

Of course that’s assuming that CONMEBOL and AFC are paired together in the draw.

Yeah I always thought that out of all the things that Football could be susceptible it was match fixing. The global nature of the game where punters around the world would bet on some of the most low profile match (as shown by betting on state league games) combined with the fact that Australian Football players aren’t the most well paid players in the world. I also think that referees who aren’t professional in the A-league and are working as referee part time would be at risk to approach from bookmakers.

I still have suspicions about the way FFA dealt with Grant Brebner with him betting against his own club Melbourne Victory in their lost to Chonburi. He bet that Melbourne Victory lost the match and bet 2 goal margin and won the bet. His penalty was a slap of the wrist fine and a 4 match suspension which was very lenient. Now I’m not saying that match was fixed but to my knowledge there wasn’t a serious investigation on that match and when you have a player in your own club betting against your own team and winning it, a thorough investigation should occur.

I think with Tendulkar him in the 90’s is different from him in the 00’s onwards.

TEndulkar in the 90’s minus Zimbabwe and Bangladesh – 59.38
The whole second to Bradman was very legitimate there

HOwever he decline in the 00 in probably one of the most batsman friendly era where we have 20 batsman averaging over 50 in that decade instead of just 3 players in the 90’s.
his batting average minus Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in the 00’s is 47.19 and 47.32 so far this decade which is world class but far below the rest of the pack of Ponting, Kallis, Dravid. etc

Sure it was due to injuries but they all count. I mean if we have a player who is willing to play partly injured that still counts to the record. also it shows the deterioration that comes with the aging process.

Just like people in this post wrote about Lara that you don’t know which Lara you will get, the one who scored 153* or the one who gets out cheaply

well which Tendulkar you are going to get, the one who dominate in the 90’s or the partly injured, aging Tendulkar in the 00’s. onwards.

The overall aggregate batting average of matches involving a player gives a good indicator of the difficulty of the batting conditions or the amount of support his batting team have.

SR Tendulkar average 51.08 (minus Bangladesh, Zimbabwe). The aggregate batting averages of matches involving him is 34.35
Brian Lara average 52.53 (minus Bangladesh, Zimbabwe). The aggregate batting averages of matches involving him is 29.39

The aggregate batting average in test cricket is 30.20.

I agree Sheek

Political correctness advocated by people who call themselves progressive is one of the most hypocritical thing I ever heard, an absolute betrayal of progressive politics.

Progressive values – nothing is sacred, everything is up for debate, we should always look to improve society and allow self-scrutinised our own society, cultures and traditions and look for ways to improve ourselves. Cultures are fludiic and constantly change. Values and beliefs have to live and die within their own merit and cultural status shouldn’t enter the debate. People shouldn’t be obligated to like, respect or celebrate our own cultural values of the majority.

then we have political correctness, this is part of their culture, we shouldn’t criticised their cultural values, we have to accept cultural beliefs of everyone.

Honestly I find that so bloody offensive because these political correct crowd forget one thing. There are progressive people in every society and culture who don’t follow cultural traditions who criticised their own culture. By advocating political correctness, you are selling out liberals, progressives within their own community.

Then they say garbage like people within their own culture are allowed to criticised but not people outside it. A good argument is a good argument irrespective of who is telling it. Judge ideas, arguments bt its own merit not the person who is telling it.

PC people care about preserving all cultures except their own which just makes them self-hating traditional conservatives. They are just as bad as nationalist saying people are obligated to follow Australian culture and traditions simply because it is Australian but at least the nationalist are consistent.

I’m not necessarily against people expressing cultural values and beliefs. The key is that we treat those values on its own merit and whether it is part of their culture or not is irrelevant to the quality of the values and beliefs.

Religion is part of culture – culture are open to scrutiny and are fluid in any liberal democracies. Cultures aren’t sacred.and neither is religious beliefs or practice

People have the right to religious expression but people shouldn’t have the obligation to accomodate every religious belief within their workplace

If your religious expression is contradictory to the obligation of the workplace than choose another workplace

Don’t fear we now have the Australian Sport Party elected to the senate to save our sporting team

Yep it is made up of different cultures.

If you sum up the individual beliefs/values of any group you get what is popular in a society. When that popularity prevail over time, it becomes culture and when that culture prevails over time it becomes traditions.

However all those things that tells you is how popular or widespread a belief is within a society. That doesn’t tell us in of itself how good or bad the value. I don’t believe that any individual has to respect what is popular in any society because that is autocratic as it forces people to conform to cultural expectation. It restricts critical thinking.

My political belief is mostly progressive, however I view political correct crowd who tells us we have to respect cultural differences of other society as equally bad as conservatives telling people that we have to conform to Australian culture. Both of those crowd wants to reduce scrutiny of values that are culturally entrenched within a community.

i’m happy accept that discrimination of race is wrong

However discrimination based on culture, religion and custom and values has absolutely nothing to do with racism and there should be no special protection on that.

If two people are exactly the same person but the only difference is their race. They should be treated equally

If you have different values. Well values aren’t sacred. Values are continuously debated, challenge, Custom and cultures change because values are continuously challenge, refined and scrutinised

By protecting “cultural” and “custom” and obligating people to respect it you ended up having a regressive society.

Discrimination of people based on what they believe should never be considered equivalence of racism.

The call for racism for people who disagree with Fawad’s exemption is absolutely nonsense.

I think it wouldn’t be too difficult to calculate the % of revenue cricket Australia makes from VB and then deduct it from Ahmed salary.

Let’s hope that scenario occurs

“Cultural maturity”

There should be no obligation for any individual to respect the cultural beliefs of another group.

Cultural values are fluidic and changes over time. THey change because cultures aren’t sacred, they are open to scrutiny. A principle of most liberal democracy is that all values and beliefs are open to debate and discussion and whether they are culturally entrenched whether in our own community or another community not should not be exempted from that

Australia is a country through the lack of laws banning alcohol advertisement approves the freedom of company to choose to promote alcohol.

Cricket australia political stance supports the continuation of alcohol promotion by accepting Alcohol sponsorship.

Are people are allowed to be against Alcohol promotion either for secular or religious reasons? the answer is yes. People are allowed to campaign against alcohol promotion and try to change laws etc.

However there is no obligations for any individual or company to accomodate for that belief. If the company policy is to take in money from alcohol company then they have no obligations to give exemption to the obligations of the individual employees who are against that

People who are against alcohol promotion (for whatever reason, religious or secular) will just have to find a company that align itself with their political values.

To demand people to respect it as ridiculous as asking a leftist person to respect the beliefs of a conservatives or vice versa.

First thing is that you made the assumption that the ethnic/religious make up the team is representative of hte population. THat is not always the case. Have a look at the French Football Team as an example of the racial composition of the population isn’t always the same as the proportion of the national team.

Also people can refuse to wear alcohol promotion for non-religious reasons. After all there was prohibition of alcohol in Western countries in the past. THere’s no reason why you can’t have an employee who has strong political beliefs of wanting to ban alcohol or alcohol advertisement for secular reasons.

I said this again I completely against the whole concept of conscientious objectors in occupation

Is the task legal?

IS it a reasonable expectation of your job description (wearing a uniform with the sponsors of your company is a reasonable expectation of an employee)?

Then do the job or pick another profession

If you have strong moral opinions on issues than make sure you have a career choice that doesn’t conflict with your moral opinions and be hell of alot more selective on which company you want to work for.

The fact that Cricket Australia was the one that approach Ahmed and offered exemption made me lose more respect for Cricket Australia. Creating double standards and giving preferential treatment to employees is a bad decision

“No there is no obligation for values to be respected, but not respecting ones values makes you unfit to participate in a democratic society, because that’s autocratic thinking. ”

Actually that’s the opposite IMO

A democratic society lives under the principle that nothing is sacred and everything is up for debate.

A value has to live and die on its own merit. A value has to earn its respect through scrutiny and being challenged and being able to prevail through the scrutiny. Just like people have to earn its respect, so does values and beliefs and respect can’t be demanded just because it is popular and culturally entrenched either in our community or in any other community in the world. Autocratic only applies when you make expression of beliefs and values to be illegal but there’s nothing autocratic about disapproving and not respecting values you don’t personally believe in.

That’s the reason why I oppose the idea that ‘equal opportunity” applies to the idea that unequal treatment of beliefs and values is some how “unfair”. An individual has the right to treat someone with different attitudes and belief unequally in a social situation. in the workplace, I may accept that values and beliefs unrelated to do the job shouldn’t influence the employer treats their employees as work is about the ability to get the job done. However when it impacts the ability to do the job then yes it is justified for discrimination.

Let’s not forget that Michael Clarke was averaging about 35 ish when he made his debut for Australia against India and he turned out alright which certianly add to your point

Yes the rules for me is that if you are 30 year old with an average less than 40 then you are in the never to be picked basket.

If you are a youngish player however a sub 40 average can be justified through to judgement of “potential”.

TO clarify I’m not saying what happen is illegal or anything like that. It’s within legal rights for Fawad to refused to wear the logo and try and negotiate his contract to not have to do that.

It’s within legal rights for Cricket Australia and VB to allow Fawad to be exempted from that.

I just don’t think it’s good policy to give that exemption

There are many sources of revenue Cricket australia but players refusing to wear logo of a particular sponsor jeapordises one source of revenue that Cricket Australia has. Sure it is just one of many different sponsors and one of many different revenues but companies don’t want to mess up any of their source of revenue.

Sure right now VB approved of Fawad not wearing their logo and hence their sponsorship isn’t immediately jeopardise. However the main point I brought up is what happen if in the future multiple members put out their objections and used Fawad Ahmed request as a precedent?

Sure one player not wearing the logo may be acceptable for VB, what happen if that increase to 4 or 5 members of the ODI team in the future. Would they still be willing to financially support Cricket Australia?

By approving this, it put Cricket Australia at risk in the future to either put their sponsorship with VB at risk or they will be guilty of hypocrisy and inconsistent policy by approving Fawad Ahmed and rejecting further application to not jeapordise relations with VB. The point is Cricket Australia created a precedent that is simply not sustainable if other employees decided to take up on it.

In terms of equal opportunity. With discrimination. If we have two people who are exactly the same and the only thing that is different is their race and gender. I support treating them equal. However there’s a tendency these days to shift equal treatment to cover values and beliefs that are popular within a specific community or popular within a religious community etc and call it discrimination against cultural/religious beliefs when there is unequal treatment based on that.

Values and beliefs have real world consequences and can affect the ability to do your job. Also values/beliefs are not sacred as people values do change and there’s no obligation for it to be respected in of itself. I think democratic societies thrive on the fact that cultures, beliefs and values aren’t sacred. If you have one person who has no moral qualms to do everything a company ask of them and another person has a moral objection to do a specific task then there should be no problem if unequal treatment results because values/beliefs unlike race/gender impact on your work. The idea that the values, beliefs that people have deserves the same protection that race has is something I can not support. I find the whole refusing to do legal task that is a reasonable expectation of your responsibility as an employee due to moral objection to be something fraught with danger and can be abuse by employees.

If SIddle gets picked playing T20 I expect him to wear the uniform with the KFC logo on it